A life from scratch

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Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

That is our family pet/science experiment, Sea Monsters.
This past Christmas the munchikins got this kit, during vacation we set it up. The instructions led us to believe that we would happily experience squirming swimming tinyness for a few weeks, and then all the creatures would die. The instructions also said that if we let all the water dry out and waited another 2 weeks we could fill the container back up with water and start the whole cycle again. So, when there were no more swimmers we ignored it. A couple weeks went by and with barley a half inch of water left I noticed movement. There were new things living in there! They were totally different and there were two kinds of totally different. We’re still not sure if these swimmers were in the original package or if they came from our well water. So I refilled it with water and they have thrived. They have an active algae colony that they feed on and a little bed of detritus (wood shavings that the original eggs came in) that they use for a nursery. Seriously, the first few times we added water the detritus would get all stirred up and mixed around and within 24 hours it would all be back next to the little castle in a tidy little pile!. Lest you think I am making this up – here they are in action.

In other news I replanted my African violets today. I do this about once a year when they have almost finished flowering –I love it! My Gram-cracker (mom’s mom) gave me two plants when we first moved into the house 6 years ago and they’re still going strong. I totally neglect these plants and they do just fine, they have even divided on their own enough for me to gift all 3 of my Moms (birth, in-law and step) on Mother’s day and give them away to friends and family. I prune them really hard when I replant, right down to about 3 rounds of mature leaves – it seems to make the replant transition easier on them, I’ve never had one die. This year I only ended up with one extra plant, just gotta figure out who I should give it to. Anyone local interested just let me know – it flowers in an indigo color with star shaped, 5 petal flowers in May/early June each year.
All 3 at my sink, my pink beauty (she flowers the longest), headed for the compost
Needs a good home